New Year's Eve with Maddy

We all needed some down time today after a crazy week, so we spent New Year's Eve at home playing games. We started with a video game and as the day progressed, we moved to board games.

I love this picture of Maddy playing Orchard so much, not because she is actually having fun playing a board game and actually played 3 complete games of this in a row with me. I love it because her new stuffed dog, Shine, and Fudge, the puppet are playing with us. Maddy and I rolled for them. They did a nice job.

Then Nan came over for a bit. Ash and I took a walk while Maddy and Nan watched Canimals. Then Maddy went to bed.

So she is ringing in the New Year with her glow-cat Pica and her dog Shine and a good nights sleep.

Some Christmas pics

This time of year is always a little crazy, but I actually got some pictures taken Christmas day. Maddy has been telling us for the last two weeks that she was going to wait until after church on Christmas to even look in her stocking and as for the presents, we were definitely going to open them after church. Ash and I just shrugged. Whatever Maddy wants.

Maddy was in my room at 7:30 am on Christmas morning asking if she could go down and open her stocking. When I reminded her that she had been wanting to wait till after church, her reply was that she was just too excited.

Ash and I were happy to oblige. We were just as excited as she was! So presents and stockings Christmas morning.

Maddy was thrilled with her presents! She got plenty of art supplies.

A new cat nightlight that she is calling Pica and a crazy fat stuffed dog she named Shine. Pica and Shine immediately started playing with the puppets and their new camper. The only problem was Pica and Shine are huge, so they had to ride on the top.

The puppets called them monsters, but as long as they were nice, the puppets were happy to give them a ride.

Shine even hitched a ride to church with us in Maddy's coat.

After church, Maddy broke out her new spa and spent most of the afternoon soaking her feet.

She is a pretty lucky girl.

Happy Birthday to Scott

Today was Scott's birthday, so we all got together for a party at his house.

It was nice getting everyone together.

Carolyn made a beautiful cake! (Actually, this was the best chocolate cake I have ever eaten!)

The kids made sure to put 34 candles on it. (Possibly a fire hazard.)

It took Scott 3 breaths to blow them all out!

Then everyone enjoyed a rich bounty of cakes. Chocolate and a gluten-free blackberry cake.

Afterwards, we played Scott's birthday present - a game called Bean Boozled. To play the game you spin a spinner and it tells you what color of jellybean to pick. Now each color has two different flavors. One flavor is good - like buttered popcorn. The other flavor is terrible - like rotten egg. You never know which flavor you are going to get when you pick your colored jelly bean... until you bite down that is.

We learned a couple things from playing tonight.

#1. A normal person can go about 3-4 rounds before refusing to play anymore because the bad flavors are just absolutely terrible.

#2. A stubborn person, like Scott, will continue to play, but requires a trashcan nearby to spit out the nasty ones.

#3. Dad will eat anything and like it... kind of terrifying really.

Maddy in slo-mo

Here's a video that Ash put together from some of what he shot at the park on Saturday. Not bad for a cold grey day.

Maddy at the park

We got out today as a family and it was so nice. We had a great time at the park, especially Maddy. She got to do her favorite activity which is swinging.

After about 20 min, she was freezing though and snagged my sweater. She looks really cute in it. 

Ash was getting video today and Maddy turned out to be a great subject!

A flying leap across the creek ended Maddy's day. Not because she fell in. She didn't. She actually made the jump, but it was time to get home.

We had a great time today!

Maddy reads!

Maddy has been working hard on her reading this month. Here's a quick video of how she is progressing.

Sorry it's a bit sideways. She's still cute though.

The Sassy police

We had a Halloween party at church yesterday. It was a lot of fun. Sadly, my phone died in the middle of it, so I didn't get many pics. Here's a few I did get though.

Scott and Carolyn and the kids helped us decorate the night before.

The night of the party, there were some great costumes! Carolyn's was my favorite. She went as Kiki, the witch from Kiki's Delivery Service.

Here's the original. I thought Carolyn did a great job!

And, of course, Officer Maddy looked great!

The best part though is that Maddy was up this morning playing with her walkie talkie and "taking calls" from people needing assistance. Mostly it was just Benjamin Bunny, but if a real emergency had happened, Maddy would have been ready.

Maddy gets a package

Just a quick pic today of a very happy girl who got a package in the mail. Ash set it up perfectly too! He came in the house with a box and said, "Well, it's not for me."

Then to me, he said, "It's not for you. So that means it's for..."

"Maddy?" I supplied.

Maddy practically leaped out of her seat. She tossed her video game controller aside and launched across the floor.

She was thrilled!

 And shared her treats with everyone!

Maddy Marching

Maddy's Girl Scout troop marched in the Homecoming Parade tonight. Maddy has been looking forward to marching in the parade for the last week. I could not imagine why. To me it just sounded like a lot of walking, but in Maddy's mind it was a magical experience that involved candy.

I half expected that I would end up having to carry Maddy through the parade, but I was wrong. Their leader had decorated a wagon for their troop and filled it with candy for the girls to throw and those girls threw candy like anything. They even occasionally had to be reminded to throw it gently. It was hilarious watching Maddy scamper from one side of the street to the other, tossing candy at everyone she could see. It didn't matter if you were old or young or not even watching the parade. Maddy would throw candy at you. Here's a few pictures that I took.

Maddy's leaders are brilliant. At the end of the parade, each girl received a bag with their own candy and a patch. Maddy was the happiest girl ever!

Looking so big

Maddy is growing like crazy. Today her and mom came to meet me with the dog when I was walking home from work. She just came up looking so big in her shorts and tennis shoes, hauling the crazy dog along... or being hauled by the crazy dog depending on if another dog was walking by or not.

I would just like to point out that I made the shorts that she is wearing!! She is so sassy!

The Scouts

I managed to get a picture of the all three kids in their scouting uniforms today. They are all so cute and excited about what they are doing! Well, OK, Maddy looks less than thrilled, but that is because Leif is walking around behind the three of them and she is trying to see what he is doing.

She and Leif get along really well. It still makes me nervous to see her pick him up and haul him around though. He is getting so big!

It's so nice having some of the cousins close by!

An Afternoon with Maddy

It's been a nice day. Maddy and I got to do one of our favorite things today... go to a museum! We went to the Freeport Art Museum and had a nice walk around.

Ash found a picture from 2.5 years ago when we did much the same. She is so cute.

Then she made some apple pie tonight.

Best day ever.

A wiggly speech

Tomorrow is Retoric Club in the coop and Maddy has another speech prepared.

She read the speech about 5 times before I video taped this one. This was the worst recording ever of her speech. If she wasn't so darn cute I wouldn't even post it. She is not even saying the whole speech and she is moving all over the place.

She re-did the speech right after this and did it beautifully. She stood still and read every word on her card. Sadly, I forgot to hit the record button for that speech.

Oh well, there will be plenty more speeches this year.

Children of the Corn

Mom, Carolyn, and I took the kids to a little corn maze on the outside of town tonight. It is not so much a corn maze as it is a path through a corn field, but the kids have a good time at it every year. There's little decorations up along the path and they have randomly placed dummies throughout the maze for the kids to look at. Plus, they have their whole yard decorated with lots of stuff!

The first thing we did was put the kids in jail. Best part of the day.

While we were going through the maze, I made the kids slow up for a pic. They were not thrilled with me. Except for Sven. I love Sven.

All in all, it was a nice time and good to get out and run a bit on an otherwise rainy day.

Michaelmas

Today was Michaelmas so we all gathered at Carolyn and Scott's to celebrate. I still don't quite understand the holiday, except that is when the kids get their boffer swords out and spend an evening whacking each other with them. It has something to do with St. George slaying the dragon and the harvest and the kids make dragon bread and Carolyn makes stuffed mushrooms and apple pie.

Well, this year, Carolyn had the kids do a skit about the slaying of the dragon. Maddy was not thrilled about it and said she wouldn't do it, but when I told her it was like a play she was more interested. She has wanted to be in a play since Ash was in Joseph. She was so excited about being in a play that she even let me brush her hair! She asked for make-up too and we compromised with a little lipstick.

The skit was spectacular. Maddy was the princess. Soren and Sven were knights and Carl was the dragon.

Of course, Maddy had to take a turn at being the knight too. That's our self-rescuing princess!!

Bonus footage tonight comes courtesy of the skit:

Even Leif joined in the fun.

Girl (Scouts) Night Out

We had a Girl Scout night with Maddy's friend, Sarah tonight. She is also a Girl Scout and we invited her to help with one of Maddy's patches.

Tonight, we talked about respecting ourselves and others and what better way to respect yourself than by having a hair and nails night.

Maddy and Sarah did my nails.

Then I helped with Maddy's and Sarah's. We all looked pretty good when we were done.

Then we had a great time doing hair. I did Sarah's...

And Maddy did mom's.

Then mom did Maddy's hair and she was so entranced by it that she spent five minutes rolling around on the floor and staring at herself in a mirror. I wish I had gotten a picture of that!

Maybe next time.

Maddy bites a lemon

Why, you may ask, would Maddy bite a lemon...

Because she likes the laughs. She makes the best faces though!

All About Maddy

 I am seriously loving going to Girl Scout meetings with Maddy. I love just sitting in the back of the room and watching her interact with the other girls. I am always amazed at how much she is growing up and I love her responses to some things.

In her troop, there are two girls named Maddy, so last week they told my Maddy that they should call her something else so they wouldn't get the two girls confused. My Maddy was like, oh you should call me Skittles because that is what my mom calls me. They looked at her kind of funny and asked why I call her that and I was totally ready to jump in with an explanation, but Maddy just smiled and said, "It's because I am fast." That's true. She always seems to skitter across the floor at top speed and so I call her Skittles. The girls all loved it though and, this week, they were all calling her Skittles.

Tonight for Girl Scouts, Maddy had to bring 3 things that represent her. It was cool watching her think about things that she loves and would want to show to other people. She ended up going with a puppet, a bag of Skittles, and a swing. We all know how much she loves to swing. The trick was finding small items though. The puppets are small and we found fun size bags of Skittles, but I could not figure out how to do the swing. I finally just put Ash and Maddy in charge of that while I went to work this afternoon.

This is what they came up with...

So Skittles was a hit tonight at Girl Scouts with her puppet sized swing set and her bags of Skittles that she handed out to everyone and she came home completely jazzed and talking a mile a minute. I am so glad she is having fun.

Maddy Speaks

Maddy has co-op tomorrow with Aunt Carolyn and the boys. It's actually a cool program for the home school kids Once every two weeks, the kids get together with other kids and do art and science, and they have a retoric (speech) class. That also means that once every two weeks, Maddy is supposed to prepare a speech to present to the class.

Well this week, we kind of forgot about it, so last night we wrote the speech while taking a walk, which only left tonight to practice it. Much like Kung Fu Panda though, Maddy is motivated by food. So tonight, she earned skittles for every line that she read.

She did a lot of reading...

Seriously! She practiced her speech at least 10 times tonight. I think I will have to keep a bag of Skittles in the house more often.

Working on Girl Scouts

Thought this might be a fun post. Maddy has been working on her Girl Scout patches again. This patch was about being responsible for what you say and do. Maddy had to do a skit about being responsible so, of course, we used the puppets.

This is Shiny trying to be responsible. He had to "take 2" because he forgot the first time and he needed a re-do. (We left out the part about him throwing a tantrum when he had to actually go to school. That was not so responsible.)

Take 2 is now the new fun game to play with the puppets.

Maddy takes off!!

Ash has been building gliders for him and Maddy for about a year now. The first plane lasted for quite a few months actually and that was with heavy use. It finally broke apart though and Ash built a second flyer for Maddy.
 
Well today, he finally added some weight to the nose to balance it and Maddy is back in business.

We had to go in the backyard, because the wind kept catching it and flying it into the street in the front yard. That little plane gets some hang time!!
 
By the way, the tie-dye shirt Maddy is wearing was made by her at the co-op group that Carolyn takes the kids too. I love that she is getting out and having experiences!

Girl Scouts

OK, so this is not the best picture, but Maddy's Girl Scout troop started meeting again tonight after taking a break for the summer.

Maddy is the little girl in the blue vest with the pink sleeves on the left. She is looking through a pile of stuff that her leaders gave them to use while they work on their Journey patches this year. Madddy does love stuff.


So she came home with a pile of badges she had earned during the summer and was feeling quite pleased with herself and way jazzed for the coming year! I guess I better go so some badges on now.